Campaigns and Posters

Stop the Rivenhall Airfield Incinerator campaign

The Stop the Incinerator campaign is a non-political cross-community campaign to oppose the regional waste site and incinerator proposed for Rivenhall Airfield, which is a site in open countryside with villages around it. These include Rivenhall, Silver End, Cressing, Bradwell, Coggeshall, Feering and Kelvedon. Witham could also be affected. The main issues are:

Emissions to air of gases, particulates, bioaerosols and odours

Health impacts on people and wildlife

Loss of farmland and impacts on surrounding land of accumulation of pollutants in soils

Increased HGV traffic on the A120 and connecting roads

Destruction of woodlands and other habitats of known protected and listed species

Impact on the listed buildings at Woodhouse Farm

Impacts on footpaths

Increased noise and light pollution in what is currently a very quiet area at night

Campaign Update 3 January 2009

A second period of consultation is taking place and January 21st is the deadline to send in representations to Essex County Council regarding the Regional Waste Site and Incinerator planned for Rivenhall Airfield - less than 1 mile from Silver End. The Stop the Incinerator campaign is once again contacting local residents to encourage them to make representations. So far there have been over 600 objections from residents, councils and organisations to the planning application. The current consultation started just before Christmas and letters of complaint have been sent to Essex County Council asking why it consulted at this time and asking for a compensatory extention period, which has so far been refused.

Campaign Update 21st January 2009

The deadline for responses to the latest consultation is Thursday 22nd January - so there is still time to get objections in and to encourage friends and family to do so too.

Please find attached our briefing note again for information. (Click to download it as a Word Document or a PDF.) Since that was published, further discrepencies have been found in the HGV traffic projections from the developer - and all of them point to more than the stated 404 per day. For example, the loads each HGV would carry assumed in the eRCF date for inbound household waste are about double what an actual, large council refuse lorry can carry (real figures obtained from BDC).

We have distributed about 1500 leaflets in the short time available to parts of the villages around the airfield and a number of campaign supporters printed off the briefing notes and took them round too.

The latest updates are as follows:

Following a request from the Campaign, Essex CC has released the numbers of respondants to the original application: 659 Against 1 For That is clearly a heavy weight of public opinion and under planning law is in itself a "material consideration".

Last night, Braintree DC agreed to reiterate its original objections and submit new ones as part of the current consultation. There was unanimous agreement to a series of questions and objections relating to the information revealed in the Regulation 19 material from the developer - which shows greater impacts from the scheme but even less certainty as to what he really intends to build - particularly his statement that he may turn the entire operation over to commercial and industrial waste, including from London.

Campaign supporters, including many local councillors and landowners, were out in the winter sunshine last weekend taking digital photos from 10 viewpoints around the airfield, some over a mile away. These are being used to produce visualisation montages of what the area looks like now and, using image processing software, would it could look like if the development goes ahead. These will be sent to Essex CC and also published on websites and sent to the press. We have no doubt that the applicants have not accurately portrayed the visual impacts of the scheme, which is one of the most important planning considerations.

Campaign supporters have been in touch with several wildlife and countryside organisations asking them to object to the latest consultation information, including the Woodland Trust, CPRE and the Essex Wildlife Trust. If you are a member of any of these organisations, please do contact them to ask if they have submitted objections.

Finally, we still do not know if and when the application may go to committee. Last night, BDC officers stated that they had "been told informally that a further (Reg 19) consultation may have to take place".

We will keep you posted !

Thanks as ever for everyone's help and support and particular thanks for the many helpful financial donations.

Campaign Update 5 January 2009

Please act on this soon as thanks to ECC deciding to consult on the further planning application information over Christmas and New Year we only now have a few weeks to respond!

Due to the short time available, we are not going to attempt to re-leaflet the whole area, so please see advice in the Briefing about local leafletting. We will however be attempting to re-leaflet the whole of Silver End. If anyone can help with roads in Silver End, please get in touch.

News

Success of landfill solution. This is the sort of sustainable scheme we should be doing in Essex to compost food waste - on a local basis in each district on existing industrial estates using electric vehicles - a world away from the Rivenhall Airfield proposal.

Switch electricity and/or biogas and they will donate up to £60 to us for every new residential customer. If switching both electricity and biogas, the firm will donate £60 to us. For switching just electricity, it’s £40; for just biogas, the donation is £20. Use this link >>> and quote the code ERGP1.